I recently lifted in the 2019 USPA National Championships where I totaled 1767 in wraps at 198 via a 655 squat, 451 bench and 661 deadlift. Next up is an off-season and picking a meet.
Most important part of this session: Setting up our monolift! This thing is HUGE and heavy. I've moved a number of them before so I knew what we were getting into but it is still a 3-4 man job for sure. It doesn't take that long to get up, just a lot of metal to move around. I think we have pretty much optimized the use of 1/2 my garage as far as we can. 220 square feet and now have the mono, competition bench, power rack, 8 bars, lat pulldown and bands, weights, chains to go with it all. Really happy with how this has turned out. After all that, Chris and I did train in the nasty heat. This is supposed to be the hottest weak of the summer in Michigan, it was ~95 degrees in the garage and humid. I don't how the guys in the south do garage gyms, I can hardly stand it for just one week like this.
1. Bench, 2 boards and 4 chains: 5 x 5 with the top set at 275 in plate weight. I'm working on a few things here. First, the 2 board height is my worst height. This is right about where I miss. Second, I want to get faster and work on the lockout, hence the chain weight. Third, I still bench like I wear a bench shirt, working on flaring the elbows a little earlier during the press up. Dave thinks flaring too late cost me a 468 press at the meet in June, and he's right.
2. Incline Press - Swiss bar, 4 x 12: 135 for all 4 sets. I was getting a little light headed here, probably out in the heat too long.
3. Close Grip Bench - 4 x 12 @ 135. Same thing, fading fast.
Finished up with a bunch of rope pressdowns and pushups.
I'm not conditioned for this heat! I know lots of people deal with it all the time, I'm just not ready for it. My next long term project for the garage will probably be more insulation and finishing the vertical walls. I'd love to have a mini split HVAC system out there so I can keep it reasonably cool and heat it more easily in the winter. I don't need it as comfortable as my house, but the hot summers are tough to train in and while we can get it warm enough in the winter, some of the really cold weeks suck pretty bad.
Really, what I would love to do is move out of the garage into a small building that has proper heating and cooling. Garages aren't made to be heated and cooled. The problem is justifying the cost of renting a space with only a few of us in there.
